Albert Einstein, Objective Reality, and Randomness

"No one knows anything. The whole affair would have been a delight to Jesuit fathers."
—Albert Einstein on the first international meeting on quantum physics, Solvay, 1911

Albert Einstein (1879-1955) is famous for many things. Mostly, now, he is remembered as the genius who changed scientists' (and other educated peoples') view of the nature of space and time through his theories of Special Relativity and General Relativity.

The second most famous thing about Einstein is that he showed this genius later in life. It is common knowledge that he did poorly in school as a child. This story is beloved by parents who feel their child's self-esteem is more important than actually hitting the books and proving they have done it with good grades. Unfortunately the story is not true. Little Albert's grades were quite good from elementary school to graduate school. [The best Einstein biography for advanced readers, including Philosophy students, is Subtle Is the Lord: The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein]

The third most famous thing about him was his support for the U.S.A. developing an atomic weapon, followed by his regret that an atomic weapon was developed and used to destroy two cities filled with people in Japan. Albert was a peace activist well before World War I began, and remained so until the end of his life.

Albert Einstein was interested in philosophy from at least as early as his college days. Possibly the fourth most famous thing he was famous for was not being able to reconcile with the science of quantum physics, even though he was one of the inventors and major contributors to that branch of science.

Quantum physics developed slowly. Its origin is usually marked by Max Plank's paper on radiation in 1901, which to jump to a later interpretation said that electromagnetic radiation (including light) comes in energy packages, or quanta. This went along with the ongoing development of the atomic theory, which had shown that electric charge also came in packages, which came to be called electrons. There were many weird things about the new theory, most notably that these light quanta, or photons, and electrons sometimes acted like waves and sometimes acted like particles.

The parts of quantum theory that Einstein could never except had to do with randomness. Einstein wanted to see reality as objective. That does not mean that it is just made up of objects. Rather, he wanted the objects (which could include wave-like objects) to be subject to the laws of causality, as he saw them. A number of results of quantum physics collided with Einstein's view of causality, including the Uncertainty Principle [Heisenberg's] and such random events as the decays of nuclear physics (resulting in radioactivity) and in particular the random timing of transitions of electrons when near an atom that result in electromagnetic radiation.

Younger physicists had no problem accepting quantum physics. They seldom saw it as posing a philosophical problem, much less a science one. Einstein's assumption that to have science you need causality, and specifically causality as defined by Isaac Newton, does not hold much weight today among people with PhD's in physics.

Einstein worked until he was on his death bed to find the underlying causes of quantum randomness and probabilities. Long after his death it was postulated, and is now generally believed, that the proton and neutron consist of smaller entities called quarks (more particle like) and gluons (more wave or force-like). If there were some way to measure the positions and velocities of the particles making up the neutrons and protons of an atom, then perhaps it would be possible to predict when a specific atom of a radioactive element would decay. But it is not likely that these decays are the result of the quarks reaching some particular configuration.

Consider dice and solar flares.

Ordinary fair dice, the kind used in casinos and board games, are governed by classical physics. [If you could make them small enough, say a few atoms across, they might start to display true quantum randomness.] They produces random results as long as they are thrown fairly. In theory (and to a surprising degree in practice) you can predict the results if you can sufficiently control how they are thrown and know enough about the surfaces they bounce against before coming up snake eyes, or boxcars, or whatever.

Einstein wanted atomic physics to work like ordinary dice. That would preserve his classical physics version of causality.

Consider solar flares. Scientist know there are patterns to them, but within the envelopes of those patterns they are random. They are mainly classical physics phenomena. They would be predictable if you knew enough about the matter and energy of the sun that gives rise to them. But how would you know that, in advance? You would need some sort of probe that can survive within the sun and send you detailed information about the pre-flare setup.

In fact there are a lot of things we can't know with certainty, for a wide variety of reasons. That does not mean that reality isn't objective. It is because objective reality is complicated. Very to the power of 30 complicated.

For much of my life I tended to favor Einstein's objections to quantum randomness. At some point, however, I realized the problem was more semantic than scientific. In other words, the problem was with how Einstein defined the words objective and causality.

Randomness in quantum physics doe not mean that anything can happen. The randomness in quantum physics is in envelopes. Just as when you roll a pair of dice you may bet any result from 2 to 12, but get 7's more often than other results, in quantum physics you mostly individual get results around a central number, and statistical results from a large set of data are also typically very close to that number.

That is causal enough for me. I accept probability and the statistical nature of results as part of the objective reality of the universe. In fact I have found that seeing the relationship of randomness to cause and effect has been very helpful to me.

I could tell you a story about a preacher who always introduced himself to potential victims with the words "Look around you. Do you believe that this all could be random?" But I have covered enough for one essay.

Entangled in Spooky Science

Spooky science sells better than serious science, especially when science requires mathematics beyond 99% of the population's knowledge. The June 2011 Scientific American issue includes an article by Vlatko Vedral, Living in a Quantum World, that emphasizes one spooky corner of reality, quantum entanglement. This is also a favorite topic of New Age purveyors of spooky religious viewpoints, as if it might provide a physical basis for ESP and other tricks of the trade.

We are spooked by the unfamiliar. Familiar things that should be totally amazing, like transistor radios and lasers, which rely on quantum mechanical effects, don't faze us at all these days. We don't have to understand new technologies to stop being spooked by them, we just need to see them in action for a while.

I would argue that quantum physics has few new philosophical implications. It is no where near as revolutionary as what we now call Classical physics.

Classic is one of those words we need to be careful about. It used to allude to the culture of the ancient Greeks and Romans, let's say from 500 B.C. to before the Christ cult took over in the 4th century after Augustus Caesar. In physics it means, roughly, how the world was conceived of by scientists from the era of Galileo and Copernicus until Albert Einstein's four famous papers of 1905.

Classical physics was pretty darned spooky stuff. Not really believable, unless you looked at nature with a great deal of care. Before classical physics there was ordinary human intuition based on experiences in the world, and there was the physics of Aristotle and his cohort of Greek geeks. Today seven year olds know about dinosaurs and galaxies, but no one knew about them in 1400. Except for a very few people who studied the Greek classics (and the equivalents of other civilizations, notably the Arabs, Indians and Chinese), experience was limited. Water flowed downhill, the seasons were reliable, the stars rotated around Polaris, and no one had built a decent sewer system since the fall of the Roman Empire.

For Aristotle objects moved only when under the influence of a continuous force. People familiar with Newton's first law of motion (previously stated by many others, especially Islamic scientists), that an object's velocity remains constant unless acted on by an external force, may laugh at Aristotle. But in the everyday real-world Aristotle is right and Newton is wrong. Aristotle correctly believed there is always friction; he argued that vacuums, required for friction-free maintenance of velocity, cannot exist. The best modern car running on a flat road need gas, and the force from its engine, to maintain a constant speed to overcome friction. For Newton's version of the law to work you need essentially imaginary conditions: a perfect vacuum, which you can't find even in inter-galactic space.

The idea of continuing motion without a force behind it was spooky; it still is if you think about it too much. But it was not as spooky as the revelation that the earth revolves on its axis. We seem to be relatively motionless, hugging mother earth, but we are not.

Electricity and magnetism are part of pre-1905 physics. Talk about spooky. Both were believed by religious types to be the physical basis for ESP and hypnotism (called personal magnetism). Both exerted force at a distance. It took decades of experimenting and thinking to figure out their basic laws. But people got used to them. They got used to the telegraph, electric lights, and telephones.

Other people, including scientists, had trouble with Albert Einstein's work on relativity. Einstein himself had lots of trouble with the concepts of quantum physics, even though he was one of the inventors of the inventors of the field. He called quantum entanglement "spooky action at a distance." This from a guy whose father and uncle had a successful 19th-century electromagnetics business. (Which is why doing well in elementary school was not all that important to his future success.)

Context is as important in the natural sciences as it is in philosophy or dealing with various human cultures. Vedral's "Living in a Quantum World," makes the case that quantum effects can show up in our macro world. In particular he wrote about quantum entanglement. It is interesting stuff, and I applaud those who have figured out how to extend our knowledge of this subtle phenomena. But be forewarned, this is the stuff New Age con artists use to bamboozle their soft-brained victims.

Beware of physics writers over generalizing. Vedral uses the phrase "Quantum mechanics says ..." Quantum mechanics does not say anything. Physicists say things, and they often disagree with each other, especially about quantum mechanics and its philosophical interpretations. As a group they like to say that quantum mechanics has a long history of making correct predictions as verified by experiments. But in fact, as illustrated in, for instance, Abraham Pais's Inward Bound: Of Matter and Forces in the Physical World, quantum mechanics has a long history of missing on as many predictions as it hit. Today's quantum mechanics is not the quantum mechanics of 1940. The math has often been fudged after the experimental results were known. That is fine, fixing a theory is part of the process of science.

It does not serve science, however, to pretend that a theory developed in the 1920's accurately predicted all the results known today.

Get Down Moses, With the U.S. Constitution

When the U.S. Constitution was forced on the American people in 1788 religion was not very different than it is today. There were no Mormons yet, but most of the major Christian sects had made an appearance. The educated ruling class studied the Greek and Roman classics, meaning they were exposed to both pagan beliefs and skepticism. Many Americans, possibly a majority were agnostics, atheists, materialists, or deists.

Politics was already a highly developed art and craft. So was its camp follower, corruption. I would argue that the first Congress under the new Constitution was the most corrupt in American history, but then there is a lot of competition, and records of corruption are incomplete, so I can't be sure. The U.S. Constitution was largely based on the British Constitution, but also borrowed from the Iroquois confederation, ancient Greek and Roman forms, and the various states, notably the State of Virginia.

Science, on the other hand, was just beginning its climb up Mount Sinai. Isaac Newton had invented calculus and outlined what is now called classical physics; he had died in 1727. But electricity was still something created by friction or lightning. Charles Darwin would not be born until 1809. Atoms would remain basically undifferentiated blobs until the 1890's.

For a document designed to centralize the power of the ruling elite, with just enough democracy included to keep the rabble from revolting too often, the U.S. Constitution is a pretty good basis for government. Its most obvious flaws, like the structure of the Senate, are a result of political compromise, not planning or wisdom. Amendments have, on the whole, improved it over the centuries. Most importantly, even the early ruling elite had their moments of working for the public good.

Largely because of Tea Party agitation, many Americans are taking a good look at their Constitution. Like any complex object, it can be looked at from many different angles. A citizen might like one part and dislike another. Throw in the often-mythologized stories about the (white) men who wrote the damned thing, and you have a lot of room for principled disagreements. Need more room, and you can just desert principles, which is a rather common (and often successful) political strategy.

Religious people, I mean the truly religious, project their religion into almost everything. It is almost a truism in certain circles that the U.S. Constitution was written by God. Now you and I know that is not true: God writes in Latin, not English. But the God-smitten won't have it any other way.

Which creates its own issues. Were Amendments to the Constitution written by God, or just the Original Constitution? Did God also write the Articles of Confederation? Why exactly did God give Congress the power to "promote the progress of science" [Article I, Section VIII, paragraph 8]?

You know why. He was preparing the way for his greatest prophets. Charles Darwin, James Clerk Maxwell, Max Planck, Albert Einstein, and Francis Crick, among others.

Science, Nature, and Human Error

This Natural Liberation blog is all too often about political events of the day. Needing a topic to write on, I can look at the day's news. I can also illuminate the topic with some examples from history. The importance of politics is clear: not only are people living or dying because of political decisions, but species are surviving or not, and the entire vast web of life built up on earth these past billions of years is also in peril. Yet I did not want this blog mainly to be about politics.

I want to return to the theme of natural liberation. By going back and forth between how we participate in events and our ethics, we can refine both our knowledge of the world and of our ethics. By looking at mistakes in human reasoning in philosophy, we might liberate ourselves and find a Natural Liberation philosophy that is both good and based on a clear view of the material world.

Science is supposed to be about truth, but it is a troublesome issue for me and many of my friends. I turned away from science when I learned about its misuse by militarists. At the time the Vietnam War was waging and I was worried I would be drafted. That war ended, but the misuse of science has not changed in my lifetime. But all too many people throw out the baby (accurate understanding of nature) with the bath water (bad things done by science and technology).

Science is all about understanding nature. In itself, it is an honest pursuit. When religion, pseudo-science, or new-age claptrap is substituted for science, that is for understanding nature, the problems created by human beings can be as catastrophic as using scientific knowledge for unethical ends.

The history of science is often more instructive than just learning about the current state of scientific knowledge. Usually science histories seem to illuminate a clear path from the Dark Ages to the Nuclear Age. The real history of science includes mistaken ideas in a proportion of over 10 to 1 compared to the ones that eventually stood up to testing. Reading about scientists, including great scientists, making mistakes is a humbling and illuminating experience.

Inward Bound by Abraham Pais shows the many mistakes it sometimes takes to get an accurate view when fallible humans are seeking to understand nature. His story of the discovery of what we call x-rays by Wilhelm Roentgen. He was working with a cathode ray tube, a device that had been around for decades and was still just a decade ago commonly used for TV and computer monitor screens. He wanted to repeat and elaborate on Philipp Lenard's experiment, which was designed to study the rays when outside the actual cathode tube. His experimental device was almost the same as Lenard's, but he saved himself some time and money. Instead of encasing the tube in metal to prevent the rays from escaping randomly, he found that black cardboard would do the job adequately.

Then he noticed something everyone had missed until then: a phosphorescent screen glowed a good distance from the tube, where there was a hole in the cardboard. We now call this phenomena x-rays. The rays inside the tube we call electrons. When an electron of sufficiently high energy hits the glass lining the tube, it may cause an x-ray to be emitted. Lenard missed seeing x-rays because his metal enclosure stopped them.

People loved x-rays. We still use them the same way, to make the invisible visible. For instance taking pictures of bones inside the human body.

Roentgen became pretty good at manipulating x-rays, but strangely his theory about them was quite wrong. He thought they were the long-suspected but never found longitudinal vibrations of electro-magnetism. In fact they were later proven to be just like light and other electro-magnetic waves, only at a very high energy and very short wavelength.

Roentgen was not alone. Many scientists agreed with him about the likely nature of x-rays. Even stranger, despite cathode ray tubes having been in existence for decades by the time of Roentgen's 1895 discovery, no one had "discovered" the electron.

And despite the fact that the periodic table of elements had been worked out in the mid-1800's, no one had put together an even moderately accurate theory of atoms that would explain those chemical facts.

Even more astonishing, when Albert Einstein published his Theory of Special Relativity in 1905, generally still considered to be the most mind-blowing science paper ever, there was still no accurate understanding of atomic particles. The proton would not be "discovered" until 1918. Einstein did not need one: his theory was about time, space, and light (electromagnetism), not about atomic particles.

So it should not be surprising when ordinary people, and even people with scientific training, fall for pseudo-science. The only way to avoid that in general is to maintain a healthy level of skepticism, a balanced personality, and a grounding in the natural world.